This invention is directed to a system and method for mobile printing. More particularly, this invention is directed to a system and method for the automatic selection of a wireless document processing device.
Typically, users routinely work with documents or other data while away from their office environment. Such users need to generate image data, by printing a document, and then need to distribute or perform other functions on such image data. As the users are unable to carry document processing devices, such as multifunction peripheral devices, with them as they travel, various establishments include these devices for fee-based network access. These users generally use wireless client devices, such as laptop computers, personal data assistants, and the like, which enable the users to communicate with the service providers to facilitate the performance of operations on such image data. Web-based applications allow a user to print a document, or otherwise perform an image processing operation, to any one of the available service provider locations. A list of available service locations is ascertained and when initiating a document processing operation, the user is required to select one of the locations to perform the requested operation. When the user is already physically present at the service provider location, the inconvenience of having to manually select the output location, particularly when the user is accessing the location's wireless computer network, is generally unnecessary.
Thus, there is a need for a system and method that automatically selects the client device's location as the default selection for the performance of document processing operations.